


Our Woundedness

by amoama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, M/M, POV Stiles, Pack Family, Workplace Relationship, Workplace Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a psychologist at the same hospital where Derek works as a lead trauma doctor. They've met, but it's not until Cora and Erica get brought into the ER that they really get to know each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Woundedness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shallott](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shallott/gifts).



> Hospital AU where nobody is a werewolf but some people still have some were traits.
> 
> Mentions of suicide but no actual depiction. 
> 
> Thanks to Spaghettitoes for the thorough _ly_ awesome beta! *mwah*

At Stiles’s insistence they pass through the Resuscitation room on their way out of the hospital. Scott tries to look inconspicuous and not like he’s available to take blood, check catheters, or any other nursely activities. Stiles just likes to monitor the incoming traumas and make sure there’s nothing that’s going to ruin his night already lying in wait for him. Really, that’s all. He makes Scott accompany him in case there’s any tricky medical terminology he can’t be bothered to Google. 

“No, but Scott, does he never sleep? How does he get away with it? He looks awful, shut up, I mean, he looks great, but, like, he never sleeps. Does he have a home?” Stiles asks, as they pass the Trauma Consultant’s office in the middle of the room. He doesn’t even lower his voice. No one can withstand day after day of trauma work without rest and psychological support. That is Stiles’s clinically-informed opinion anyway and he fully believes Dr Hale needs to hear it. 

“No, _Stiles_ , he sleeps in the on-call room 24-7.”

“Oh sarcasm! I’m so proud of you Scotty. But I’m serious: he needs to at least eat sometimes!”

“I see him eat all the time, stop being weird about this!”

Stiles gives his best friend a one armed hug as they reach the hospital’s big double doors and tries to shake Derek Hale (the aloof and over-worked, but undeniably hot, Trauma Lead) out of his head. It’s 6:30pm on Friday evening: that’s worth celebrating. Scott had the early shift in the ER and he’s come back to collect Stiles from work. To be fair it's probably more to deliver coffee and kisses to Isaac, one of the rainbow wing nurses, but Stiles will take whatever best-friend time he can get out of it. Scott has weekend shifts but Stiles is off for two glorious days. Well, theoretically, there’s hardly ever no-phone-call weekends for Stiles, there aren’t enough psych staff for that, but it’s pretty damn close. He’s allowed to drink at least. The bar is calling him. 

Three beers down and his cell bleeps irritatingly from his jacket pocket. It is not the bar calling. 

“Shit,” He scrabbles and the phone fairly leaps out of his pocket, _work_ flashing up on the screen. Stiles hardly notices the sensation of his heart sinking or his head levelling up. 

“What’s going on?” 

“You’re needed.” 

“Illuminating. I can walk and talk, _Lahey_ , give me the details.” Stiles tries to sound authoritative and demonstrate how few words he's slurring.

“Two girls in a double vehicle collision came in an hour ago.” 

“What the fuck? A new case? I’m off duty! Off-off. Only available for the long-term patients assigned to me. And I’m getting drunk. So nice and drunk.”

“Yeah, sorry, Greenberg hasn’t shown and isn’t answering his cell.”

“Fuck, that guy needs to get fired.”

“They’re still being fixed up, it isn’t an emergency but we were going to have to call you anyway. You may as well know now.” 

“So I can sober up. Great, thanks. Fucking Greenberg. Fine. I'll be there.”

“Stiles?” The quaver in Isaac’s voice brings Stiles to a halt as he’s trying to battle his jacket on while keeping the phone to his ear. He’s actually never been that great at walking _and_ talking.

“Yeah?”

“One of the girls is Derek’s sister, the other’s Erica.” 

Stiles has only heard about Erica from Isaac but he knows they’re basically brother and sister and that they both live at Derek’s house. Like adopted siblings or something. Stiles has attempted to mine Isaac for information on many occasions and has shamelessly used Scott’s influence over Isaac for the same purpose on many more.

“I’m on my way,” he promises. He grabs at Scott and pulls him out the door; from the sound of Isaac’s voice at the end there, it seems like he’ll be needed (not that Isaac would ever ask).

The cops brief Stiles first. Clearly, they’re at a loss. Two women, practically sisters, ran their vehicles at each other. The police can’t tell if it’s some sort of suicide pact, DUI stunt gone wrong, or an insurance scam. They seem to be leaning towards suicide pact, less paperwork apparently. Stiles is leaning towards insurance scam, to be optimistic (except for the jail time).

The on-call surgeon gives Stiles the run down on the girls’ physical injuries: a broken ankle, injured shoulder, nosebleeds, impaired vision, possible brain injury for Erica Reyes; broken rib and knee for Cora Hale. 

Stiles heads to Cora’s room as she’s reportedly the most coherent and Stiles can already hear her very vocal requests to be discharged. The patient does indeed look very keen to be moved out of the ER, leaning up in the bed, acting as though she can vibrate herself over into the wheelchair. She smiles up at him, giving him the tell-tale, ‘See how fine I am, there’s nothing for a psychologist to be worried about’ smile. That smile is Stiles’s bread and butter.

Stiles spots Derek Hale sat on the floor against the far wall. He looks like shit: like months of all-nighters finally caught up with him. He looks washed out: like his whole life just got destroyed. Stiles knows what it’s like to be the relative at the bedside. It’s the thing that started him off down this career path - not that he knew it at the time. 

He doesn’t know Derek really, just wishes he did. They cross paths all the time in the hospital, trauma pathway meetings, ER psych consults, Stiles’s propensity to hang around the Resuscitation room “waiting for Scott”... That kind of thing. Derek is gruff but not unfriendly. They exchanged hand jobs once, about a year ago, a weird on-call room thing when Stiles was super wired after seeing a full day’s worth of complex PTSD patients and not having anything sensible to do with the mass of other people’s emotions he was carrying. It had felt like Derek was in the same kind of mood but Stiles has no idea why. It’s not like they talked, at all. 

It’s just that this is the kind of thing Stiles obsesses about. Derek felt, and smelt, amazing. He kissed hard and wretched. He felt like he knew exactly what Stiles needed, like he needed the same thing.

Stiles puts a hand on Derek’s shoulder to let him know he’s here. Derek looks up and his tear-streaked face makes Stiles’s heart leap out of his chest. 

“It’s okay,” he hears himself saying, “I’m here now, it’s okay.”

Meaningless words but he knows it’s important to just start talking.

Stiles moves past Derek, hard as that is, and reaches Cora’s bedside. She’s watching interestedly, eyes flicking between Stiles and Derek. She smiles that too-bright smile up at Stiles but now there’s something more genuine behind it. 

“Cora? I’m Stiles. I’m a clinical psychologist here.” 

“I don’t even get a real psychiatrist?” 

“Sorry, the hospital can’t afford so many of those anymore. You get me.” 

Her smile’s already gone and now she just stares up at him defiantly.

“Can you tell me what happened?” 

She looks at him like he’s stupid. Another classic look, for Stiles at least. “Car accident.”

“I understand you know the other woman involved in the crash?” Stiles refuses to be baited.

“Erica. She okay? They said brain injury to Derek.”

“They're checking it out. How are you feeling?”

“Stupid, sober, in pain. Like I’ll say anything to get out of here. What do you want to hear, _doctor_?”

“Cora,” Derek says from the wall, half warning, half beseeching, “Talk to him.”

“Perhaps you could wait outside, Dr Hale?” Stiles asks. 

Derek looks at Stiles like he’s a traitor but leaves with a sigh. Stiles tries gamely to shake off the after-effects of being the focus of all Derek’s intensity, even for such a tiny instant. 

When he turns back to Cora, she’s smirking at him far too perceptively. He purses his lips and moves blithely on through his risk questions. 

Her answers are evasive but not necessarily indicative of any mental health problems. Except for the fact that she crashed into her sister’s car last night, seemingly on purpose, and she’s not willing to talk about why. 

He learns that they had a tequila shot each but that was the only alcohol in their systems. That Cora was driving Derek’s car and that Cora finds it pretty funny that it’s totalled. Cora divulges that Erica has been living with Cora and Derek for about three years and they get on _fine_. Cora’s a fitness trainer and she’s thinking about the army as a career. Apparently, Erica and Derek have never been in a relationship and Derek hasn’t brought anyone home in over a year. Stiles is not actually sure how they got on to that, professionally-speaking. 

Stiles starts to feel like the assessment is getting a bit away from him. He decides to blame the beer. 

It’s not like they have the beds to admit her upstairs even if he wanted to and the threshold (not that Stiles particularly likes it) is way higher than Cora’s scoring. He clears her for psychiatric discharge on the condition of outpatient appointments. He’s concerned about why she did what she did but he’s not worried she’s going to try anything else while her knee is so mashed up. He’s more fearful of what that knee is going to mean for her future plans and how that will affect her mental well-being. 

Stiles lets Derek back in and Cora tells him the good news.

“You’re clearing her?” Derek checks, sounding more than a little mistrustful.

“For now,” Stiles confirms, “She’ll need to come back in regularly for a while.”

Derek nods, “Thanks for seeing her.” 

“Can I see Erica now?” Cora interrupts. 

Derek lifts Cora out of the bed and places her lightly in the waiting wheelchair. She groans a little as she goes. Stiles can’t help but be impressed by the way Derek can handle such an awkward weight so carefully. His brain helpfully supplies the images of all the ways that would be useful. 

He’s still stood at the empty bedside, _processing_ when Derek turns and asks, “You coming?”

Stiles nods helplessly and follows. 

Erica’s room is a little way down the corridor. She’s attached to a few monitoring machines and she looks far more trussed up then Cora. 

“What’s the damage?” Cora asks cheerfully as they enter. Isaac’s already in there, leaning against Scott. 

“Fuck you,” Erica replies, a little tiredly, Stiles thinks.

“Broken ankle, soft-tissue damage to the shoulder, whiplash. No brain injury detected,” Isaac answers. He’s holding one of Erica’s hands.

“No more than before,” Erica puts in.

Cora propels herself forward to hold the other hand. 

“Did you fit?” 

Erica nods miserably, “So much for one year seizure free.” 

“They are never letting you drive again,” Cora whispers, like this is the first time she’s considered the consequences.

“Nor you,” Derek adds grimly. 

Erica gives Cora a slightly manic grin, “We killed his baby,” she says in awe. 

Derek smashes his fist against the wall and hisses at them, “You nearly killed yourselves, you idiots. What the hell were you thinking?!” 

He’s shaking head to toe like he’s about to explode out of his body, clearly holding onto his anger with every ounce of self-control he’s got. The two girls stare at him, waiting to see what happens next. Stiles is suddenly scared by how much he’s expecting Derek to lash out. That’s when Stiles decides assessing Erica will have to wait. 

“Derek,” he says quietly, stepping closer, “Come on, let’s take a walk.” 

Derek’s eyes flick to his, registering, taking in his words. He stays looking at Stiles but he doesn’t move. Stiles takes a deep breath and then reaches for Derek’s hand. He leads him out of the room towards the elevator. Stiles punches in the number for his floor: he wants to get Derek out of the ER. 

Stiles leads them to his office: it’s a tiny cubby-hole with one overflowing filing cabinet, one cluttered desk and two ancient arm chairs. Derek’s far too big and far too angry for a room this small, but Derek works at this hospital, manages staff, so if he’s going to lose it, at least this is private.

As soon as the door’s shut, Derek lunges for him. Stiles is manhandled into a yielding position as Derek’s hands grasp him by the thighs and hitch him up against him. Stiles lets it happen. He kind of regrets bringing Derek here now, seeing as he’ll have to avoid spending every moment of his working day sitting at his desk visualising this, but his body is responding regardless. Stiles’s mind races to catch up. Derek is everywhere, his lips are at Stiles’s neck and jaw, his body is rubbing up against Stiles’s, his breath is loud as it catches on the edge of a moan. Derek’s ER scrubs really leave nothing to the imagination. 

Stiles’s indulges for one long moment and then his hands push reluctantly at Derek’s chest, one hand moving to his neck to press his head back, away from Stiles. 

“No,” Stiles breathes out, “No.”

Derek rolls along the wall away from Stiles as if he needs it to hold him up. He tips his head back against the wall and bangs it softly like he’s talking himself down. His hand slides up the doorframe to the light switch and the glaring hospital light that Stiles never uses flicks on. It makes them both look a little green. 

“Sorry,” Derek says to the ceiling. 

Stiles turns his body to face Derek side-on, “No,” he says quietly, “I’m sorry, I just...We can’t right now. I can’t. You’re too...”

Derek moves his head round so he can see Stiles, “Yeah, I know.” 

Stiles runs a hand up and down Derek’s side, trying to be soothing and non-sexual at the same time. It’s not usually this difficult. He runs his fingers through Derek’s hair, touches his thumb to the dark bags under Derek’s eyes. 

“Come on, sit down for a bit,” Stiles encourages him. 

Derek is slow and malleable now, happy to follow the direction of Stiles’s hands. He lowers himself into one of the armchairs and Stiles kneels beside him. He keeps touching Derek at his elbow and his knee. 

“What the fuck were they thinking?” Derek asks again, quietly now, pained instead of angry. “They think they’re invincible but they’re not.” He looks at Stiles, aghast at the possibilities. It comes out as the guiltiest of secrets: “What would I do if something happened to them?” 

Stiles can’t help standing up again to put his arms around Derek and press Derek's head down onto his shoulder. Derek still smells amazing despite his hours in the ER, he still feels amazing under Stiles’s touch, but it’s stopped being about anything but giving comfort. He knows Derek is looking to him for answers, it’s an occupational hazard that people think psychologists have special insight into unanswerable questions. Stiles wishes it were true. He won’t ever know for sure what those girls were thinking tonight.

“Who else is there, Derek? Is there anyone we can call to come look after them?” He just wants Derek not to be on his own in this.

“No,” Derek speaks into Stiles’s neck, “There’s no one else. It’s just us.”

Even though Derek means the rest of his family, Stiles still warms to how it sounds. 

“I’ll have to take time off,” Derek acknowledges, “That’ll make you happy, right?” 

“You heard that?” Stiles asks, even blushing a little.

“You know I did. I didn’t realise you hated seeing me around so much.” 

“I don’t hate seeing you around,” Stiles protests, but quietly; trying to be honest he admits, “I just wouldn’t mind seeing you a little less _fraught_.” 

“Why do you care?” Derek asks, interested. 

Stiles doesn’t really have an answer that wouldn’t horribly expose his raging crush. Not that he’s done anything in the past to try to hide it. 

“Hand jobs in the workplace can change a man.” He tries to sound sage. 

Derek offers him an honest-to-god smile, “Is that right?” 

It’s leading; it’s a leading sentence and a leading smile and Stiles kisses him because he is all too ready to be led. It’s the first kiss they’ve had that isn’t furious and selfish. This one has distinguishable parts: a gentle pressing of lips, entreating, opening, and a soft introduction of tongue. Stiles quite likes it, all told. Like he quite likes Derek, all told, really. 

“Hey,” he says, “how would you feel about continuing this later? I think we should go see to Erica now.” 

“Okay,” Derek agrees, kissing Stiles again - it feels like a thank you. 

Eventually they get back downstairs and Stiles gets Erica on her own. Erica’s had a lot of therapy in the past and she’s a lot more open than Cora in some ways, although she also has her evasion tactics down well too. Stiles hates passing judgment after one assessment but it feels to him like there was a lot of thoughtless attention seeking going on and a lot of misguided assumptions of indestructibility. 

Stiles learns that Erica works at the same gym as Cora but she’s thinking about doing medicine, like Derek, when she graduates. She tells him that the Hales are rich and their parents are dead and that she feels bad about using their money for school. Erica thinks Derek saved her when she was just an epileptic kid no one was ever going to foster. Cora was adopted out of the system and Derek wasn’t and there were about six years where they never saw each other. Erica didn’t know Derek even had another sister until a year after Erica first came to stay with him. Erica assures Stiles that they get on _fine_. For someone who actually gave up a fair bit of information about her life, Erica declares she hates therapy and if he makes her have any more she’ll spend every session talking about having sex with his Grandad. 

Stiles lets the others back in after that and makes sure to book Erica in with one of the other counsellors, citing conflict of interest. They stay for two more hours, Scott trying desperately to duck out of the eye line of all his harried-looking colleagues as they go about their work. Derek’s replacement arrives just after midnight and he ducks out to do a thorough hand-over. Scott’s mom is also on shift and she finally arrives to bustle all the _visitors_ out of the room. They all try flashing their hospital IDs in her face. She’s having none of it. 

Isaac and Derek hug it out in the car park; as do Scott and Stiles who never like to miss an opportunity to reaffirm their bro-hood. Isaac gets on the back of Scott’s bike without a word of discussion and the two of them ride off, leaving Stiles and Derek to get their shit together on their own. 

There’s an awkward pause before Stiles decides he has nothing to lose by wading into the mire of early relationship negotiations. 

“Come on, let’s go to yours so we can bring back clothes for the girls in the morning. Plus I’m pretty sure your bed must be bigger than mine.”

Derek raises his eyebrow in a way that Stiles chooses to interpret as an invitation for a quick, reassuring, kiss. Derek follows it up with a more lingering one, all promise, and then offers a one-shouldered shrug of acquiescence and gestures for Stiles to lead on towards his car. Which Stiles does, happily, chattering merrily about stopping off to get milk and wondering if Derek is a man who keeps Cheerios about the house. (He isn’t, but it’s pretty clear he’s about to be.)


End file.
